So much fuss over BELA and it still won’t improve education

The quality of South Africa’s education system should be more alarming than who sets the language of instruction and who’s allowed into which school.

There’s a lot of fuss made over these administrative changes made to our education system but regardless of the outcome of this D-Day nonsense, one thing is going to remain patently true; our education system sucks!

You don’t need to do comprehensive research of 500 schools to know this. You can do the test yourself. Put a post out on social media that you’re hiring and that you’re accepting walk-ins, write off your next day and then witness the line of desperation accumulating at your door. Take the first couple of CVs and read how, on top of being desperate, the people have been so let down by the system that even motivating why they should get work is a difficulty.

Sure, the first time you read that an applicant is “very computer literacy” you can have a little chuckle and when you read “hily attentive to detal” you can pass it off as an honest typo. But when you start noticing a pattern, it gets alarming.

BELA won’t help teachers or pupils

As I type this, I get what an elitist git I must seem like and maybe that’s the case. Regardless, it doesn’t change the very serious issue that is our kids are spending 12 years in schools that don’t seem to give them much. Moreover, we’ve done the very South African thing of realising that education is a problem and applied some law that aims to fix other things.

BELA doesn’t ensure teachers are at their posts any more than any other instrument. It doesn’t ensure pupils have an international standard of education. It doesn’t do much to motivate for the usefulness of a matric certificate. It doesn’t even do much to ensure that an applicant knows what “highly motivated and dedicated” means other than just something ChatGPT will write on all your CVs.

ALSO READ: Bela Act debate reveals deeper divide in SA politics

We should cheer at the notion that at least the legislature is doing something to address education issues but for the big issues that really affect the kids in the schools, it’s akin to throwing a blanket over a house fire and looking around proudly for some recognition that you contributed to the solution.

Wasted education

BELA or no BELA, our education system leans ever closer to being a wasted 12 years of existence rather than an enriching one. That should be more alarming to all parties than who sets the language of instruction and who’s allowed into which school.

Laying in hospital with a broken leg, I’m sure the patient will appreciate the plaster put on the small cut on their arm but I’m pretty certain they’d still want their leg to be fixed too. BELA is that plaster yet no energy is going in to fixing the leg.

So you can debate BELA all day long but don’t expect it to make the kids’ math any better. Don’t expect the schools to be any safer. Don’t expect the teachers to be any more present. Don’t expect much at all.

ALSO READ: Shortage of 250 000 places for Grade Rs, with as many as 33 pupils per teacher

We’ve been subjected to this debate for so long and frankly, at no point, was any argument made for the best interests of the children. It’s odd but telling that throughout this, the children are just what they’ve always been; pawns in a political smash-up and increasingly dependent subjects to some elite chancers.

You don’t fix the education system by politicising the administration around it. You fix the education system by making the kids learn and dedicating resources to that end. Let the politicians play politics but at some point, you’re going to have to make the teachers teach, help the teachers teach and support the teachers in teaching.

Until then, you may be better off considering the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good.

NOW READ: Nearly 40% of those who started Grade 1 in 2013 won’t write matric this year

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